56/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. It will be noted that, from the start,
this cult had the backing of governments and powerful private
financial interests. Indeed, for this cult to gain ground within the
population, public and private media found it necessary to pay
homage to it day in and day out.
The gods of this religion were the financial markets. Its temples
were known as Stock Exchanges. Only the high priests and their
acolytes could enter these temples. The faithful were called upon
to commune with their market-god on television, in the daily
papers, on the radio and at the bank.
Thanks to television and radio, even in the most remote parts of
the planet, hundreds of millions of people whose right to meet their
basic needs was denied, were also beseeched to celebrate the
market-god. In the North, in the papers read by a majority of
workers, housewives and unemployed, an 'investment' section
was published every day, even though the overwhelming ma] ority
of readers did not own a single share.
Journalists were paid to help the faithful understand signals sent
by the gods.
To heighten the power of the gods in the eyes of the faithful,
commentators periodically declared that the gods had sent signals
to governments to express their satisfaction or discontent.
The places where the gods were most likely to forcefully express
their moods were Wall Street in New York, the City in London, and
at the Paris, Frankfurt and Tokyo stock exchanges. To gauge their
moods, special indicators were devised: the Dow Jones in New
York, the Nikkei in Tokyo, the CAC40 in France and the Bel20 in
Belgium.
To appease the gods, governments sacrificed the Welfare State
to the stock markets. They also privatised public property.
Why were ordinary market operators given a religious aura?
They were neither unknown nor ethereal. They had names,
addresses. They were the people in charge of the 200 biggest
multinationals that controlled the world with the help of the G 7
and institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and the World
Trade Organisation. Governments were no strangers to this
situation; from Reagan and Thatcher onwards, they relinquished
the means they had of controlling financial markets.
As a result, money could cross borders with not a single cent in
taxes being levied. More than SI,400 billion raced around the